The Scale of my Naval

At the time of writing the only warships I own are are my scratch built ACW models - these are not scale specific - which are roughly a third complete from the painting perspective; together with a number of unmade plastic 1/1200th WW2 models centred around the Airfix: Sink the Bismarck set. All of my 1/3000th  collection has gone (as have the WW2 Axis and Allies: War at Sea collection in 1/1800th) and as yet I have made no inroads into anything concerning the use of the 1/1800th Minifigs models.

I must confess that being bereft in this fashion is somewhat unusual for me given my fondness for naval gaming and so I determined to address this in some fashion and hopefully sooner rather than later. To be honest I prefer using larger models but in the interest of getting models on the table may well have to stick to the smaller scales for gaming in the 20th century.

I am not a huge fan of 1/3000th models as to me they seem to be neither fish nor fowl in terms of scale - I cannot explain this viewpoint but they just look 'awkwardly sized' to me. As 1/1200th are too large for the normal table top (except for coastal type actions 'twixt smaller ship types - MTBs and such like) the next scale that would be logical would be 1/2400th. Oddly enough this seems to me to be a good compromise but for the 20th century you are stuck for model availability. I know GHQ produce a lovely range for this scale but they are not cheap and, I believe, would be made more so due to having to ship them over from the US. Panzerschiffe  - Panzerschiffe - produce an enormous range in this scale in resin but the problem would shipping once again from the US.

1/2400th is rather well covered in the UK by those very nice people at Tumbling Dice - Tumbling Dice UK -  but their ranges are limited to pre 20th century. This is not a bad thing by any means and I must confess to having had a number of naval ideas that are leaning towards these models - especially anything involving masts or oars. the ranges available are ancient (not on the website yet but an email to them will furnish the details), 16th century including galleys and the Armada (that covers Lepanto and 1588 very nicely), the Dutch Wars, Napoleonics and the Victorian era including the ACW and the Pacific (featuring the famous Huascar). Again, there are some models available that are not on the website as yet - including some new Victorian vessels and some ACW fortifications etc. For all the ranges there are also a selection of the all important merchant vessels (aka targets) and even 1/2400th flags.

I shall certainly be giving these some careful consideration especially as this scale is probably the only way I would tackle anything with rigging or oars!

Coming back to the 20th century I am now seriously looking at an even smaller scale. Figurehead ships - Nobleminis - have a huge range of models available but for me they are not only too small, they are also expensive and when combined with shipping from the US for me prohibitively so. Which brings me back very nicely to yet another scale - 1/4800th. This scale seems to offer a lot of potential for what I want to do and there is a fairly large range available from Mick Yarrow Miniatures - Mick Yarrow Miniatures - at quite reasonable prices. I am leaning towards using this scale for my 20th century kit and take solace from the fact that the two scales I am looking at - 1/2400th for anything pre 1900 and 1/4800th are both divisible multiples of the only true scale for naval war games - 1/1200th!

As ever, much to ponder methinks!